Thinking about the future of food safety. A foresight report

Throughout the world, in simple terms, food is kept safe by the collective efforts of all the relevant actors in the food supply chain: national authorities by establishing relevant guidelines and standards, food producers by adopting good practices, business operators by complying with regulations, and the consumers by being aware of safe food handling practices. This shared responsibility forms the basis of the slogan adopted for the annual World Food Safety Day, “Food safety is everyone’s business” (FAO and WHO, 2021).
As agrifood systems evolve and respond to various challenges – climate change, globalization, resource depletion, growing inequalities, geopolitical instabilities, e-commerce, amongst many others – food safety needs to keep pace with these changes. Policies, guidelines, standards and regulations related to food safety need to be kept up to date or further developed to reflect the changing needs within the current system. Managing critical food safety deficiencies will foster the efficiency and resilience of agrifood systems and ultimately help achieve food security while ensuring global public health.
(Source: document “Introduction”).